The Pillow Book of Prudence . . . Part 10
Brevity: Things that are brief can be appreciated or they can be a vast disappointment.
Eating a block of chocolate is too brief.
Chatzy to America is too brief. The series of Return to Cranford and Doc Martin likewise. Sunny warmth on a winters day: all too brief. The scallop season. The dog’ s good behaviour. Exercises for a damaged ankle are not brief enough so perhaps they should go into the longevity category. The current flood of political mind-bending should be so brief as to be non-existent. In fact politics as a career should be non-existent.
Longevity: Things that are long can be viewed as bounty or utter tedium. The reader must be the judge.
My mother’s active life, for which we give daily thanks. The time it takes to mend an ankle. Spring approaching. Pre-election claptrap. The love of a good man. Trying to finish the Work In Progress. Editing. Waiting to hear from London. Reading Jilly Cooper . . . again . . . bounty, definitely not tedium.
The eighth month has reached the end of its first week and it is possible to say that what began as a tedious recuperation of great longevity is actually scurrying by.
Friends chat and invite me to collaborate on fine arts projects, in writing endeavours Interviews take place. And the time I spend on my latest novel becomes shamefully brief.
Frustrated with the (wrong) perception that I am spending too many long hours with my foot elevated, every moment my husband spends in a vehicle, I join him. I try to avoid the walls that sometimes hem me in.
In more rational moments, I accept that rehabilitation of all the ruptured ligaments in wrist and ankle will take time if this is not to happen again. That my patience previously brief, must prove itself worthy of the name.
In the meantime, 
I watch the white flowering quince boughs I placed in a vase in the hall. They have been there for five weeks and have only just burst into bloom. Does that not exhibit longevity of the highest order?
Sorry, but in my book Cadbury doesn’t qualify as chocolate!! Not enough cocoa solids, cocoa butter and too much soy-lecithin. Good dark chocolate licked and sucked slowly would certainly not fall under longevity but appreciated longer considering the endorphins it produces.
Dark choc and I don’t go together, too much of the caffeine stuff. We’ve got a Cadbury’s factory here in my home town and the chocolate is okay, especially Topdeck and Marble. But my faves are Lindt and Guylian of all sorts and a special bespoke chocolate from a couple of small chocolate houses in suburban Melbourne. Chocolate of all brands produces endorphins every time with me.
In the dessert universe, there are Chocolate People and Lemon People. All this chocolate talk moves me not a bit.
Chocolate has hijacked this thread. Lemons, arise and fight!
Pat, I’m a lemon person too. If we are out in a restaurant and there is a lemon dessert of any sort, I will always choose that over chocolate. Have some seriously more-ish lemon slice recipes as well. AND when guests come for dinner, my most cooked dessert is a very lemon, very tart tart (It can be made with limes if you’d rather). Or an old-fashioned lemon meringue pie.
Yes i am a tart too 🙂 the food kind I mean! Love citrus in all forms.(in drinks too, anyone?) I would go with a lemony desert over chocolate because it’s rare to find good choc dessert. Too often in the US desserts and pastries are over sweetened. Like a blessing in disguise for me really. But I would say that; in my country of birth I had 6 bakeries in walking distance and before school we were send out for a fresh loaf of bread. In my teens I took to eating pastries for lunch!!! Couldn’t afford that now…but it’s part of my healthfood paradox. My dinners were very healthy organic homecooked meals.
Yes i am a tart too 🙂 the food kind I mean! Love citrus in all forms.(in drinks too, anyone?) I would go with a lemony desert over chocolate because it’s rare to find good choc dessert. Too often in the US desserts and pastries are over sweetened. Like a blessing in disguise for me really. But I would say that; in my country of birth I had 6 bakeries in walking distance and before school we were send out for a fresh loaf of bread. In my teens I took to eating pastries for lunch!!! Couldn’t afford that now…but it’s part of my healthfood paradox. My dinners were very healthy organic homecooked meals.